Blantyre city Mayor’s Trophy commencement delayed

Blantyre City Council has said commencement of the Mayor’s Trophy tournament has been delayed because of financial hiccups.

Speaking on Thursday when First Merchant Bank (FMB) donated football and netball kits worth K1.2 million to be used by teams in the competition, the city’s Mayor, Wild Ndipo, said the council is looking for K20 million to successfully organise the tournament.

Ndipo said the competition was supposed to have started by now, but got delayed in order to raise more resources.
“We are very grateful to FMB for the donation. We are hopeful that the corporate world would bail us out by taking over sponsorship of the event.

“But still, this donation will go a long way in helping us to organise this competition. Other companies and organisations should emulate FMB’s example,” the city father said.

FMB Head of Transactional Banking, Ewen Hiwa, who presented the kits on behalf of the bank, said they decided to support the initiative as part of their commitment to the development of sports in the country.

“FMB is not a stranger in the development of sports in this country. We recently had the finals of the FMB Under 20 Football League in Mulanje.

“We also sponsor minority sports like hockey and cricket. Therefore, we thought of giving Blantyre City Council a hand in the Mayor’s Trophy because they are our partners,” Hiwa said.

Meanwhile, Chairperson of the Trophy’s organising committee, Mike Mambo, has said the tournament will kick-off on January 24.

Mambo said registration of participating teams is underway in both football and netball.

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